07-15-2022, 02:19 PM
Need help understanding sleep study results
Due to longstanding fatigue, my primary care physician recently recommended that I be evaluated for sleep apnea, and referred me to a pulmonologist. Following his in-clinic assessment, the pulmonologist told me he was "nearly certain" that I had OSA, ordered a home sleep study, and went as far as to tell me that I should schedule my next appointment after 30 days on CPAP.
Frankly, I'm a walking stereotype of OSA sufferers in every sense but age. I'm only 30, but meet all the other "stop bang" criteria, have dealt with numerous related symptoms for over a decade, and during the past 12-18 months my quality of life has especially declined. I get a consistent 8-8.5 hours of sleep, but wake up feeling absolutely terrible and spend the rest of the day constantly tired. It's causing me problems at work, problems at home, I have no energy to do the things I enjoy, and my BMI is now in the "obese" category.
While I am still waiting on my pulmonologist's interpretation, I just received the attached sleep study results with the enclosed explanation (from the sleep study doctor) that they are "normal". Not the result that I was primed to expect - did I do something wrong, did my doctor make too many assumptions, or ??
My question for those more knowledgeable is: do any of the individual results/parameters look out of the ordinary, or otherwise suggest that an in-lab study might have further diagnostic value? I assume that this is going to be my doctor's next recommendation. While I don't relish the idea of an OSA diagnosis, my PCP & the other specialists I see have no other ideas. I can't afford to do an in-lab study on a purely speculative basis, but would find a way to pay for it if I knew it could help me get it to the bottom of this.
Frankly, I'm a walking stereotype of OSA sufferers in every sense but age. I'm only 30, but meet all the other "stop bang" criteria, have dealt with numerous related symptoms for over a decade, and during the past 12-18 months my quality of life has especially declined. I get a consistent 8-8.5 hours of sleep, but wake up feeling absolutely terrible and spend the rest of the day constantly tired. It's causing me problems at work, problems at home, I have no energy to do the things I enjoy, and my BMI is now in the "obese" category.
While I am still waiting on my pulmonologist's interpretation, I just received the attached sleep study results with the enclosed explanation (from the sleep study doctor) that they are "normal". Not the result that I was primed to expect - did I do something wrong, did my doctor make too many assumptions, or ??
My question for those more knowledgeable is: do any of the individual results/parameters look out of the ordinary, or otherwise suggest that an in-lab study might have further diagnostic value? I assume that this is going to be my doctor's next recommendation. While I don't relish the idea of an OSA diagnosis, my PCP & the other specialists I see have no other ideas. I can't afford to do an in-lab study on a purely speculative basis, but would find a way to pay for it if I knew it could help me get it to the bottom of this.
